Environments for Doing Mathematics by Cooperative Problem Solving


Karsten Homann and Jacques Calmet, Universität Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract:

The combination of systems performing any kind of mathematical computation is a young and active research field. A major requirement to qualify as a mathematical service is the ability to cooperate by incremental and restartable computation and deduction.

We classified communication and cooperation mechanisms for such environments and believe that the lack of a general framework is one reason why nowadays prototypes of interfaces failed to reach their objectives. Another reason is that computer algebra systems (CAS) still behave like black boxes.

We implemented several interfaces between theorem provers and CAS to demonstrate the benefits and to define future directions in the design of heterogeneous mathematical environments.